Display 3D Image by WPF

There’re many famous software such as Maya, AutoCAD, Solid Work which can display the 3D model. Moreover, those software also support user to manipulate the 3D Model like Zoom, Move, Rotate the 3D model.

In this article, I will guide you how to read a 3D model file, display it on Window screen as well as manipulate it (Zoom, Move, Rotate) like those software.

We will develop a WPF Window Application (Window Presentation Framework) to display the 3D model file. The simple way to display 3D model is combining WPF with 3rd library (Helix Toolkit)

Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) is a next-generation presentation system for building Windows client applications. This framework is an improvement compare to Window Form with support attractive GUI, Graphic, Video. With WPF, you can create a GUI application as well as browser-hosted applicationGetting Started with WPF 3D Model

Helix Toolkit builds on the 3-D functionality in Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). This library provides a higher level APIs for working with 3-D in WPF, via a collection of controls and helper classes. Although this library only supports few 3D model formats like STL or OBJ, and not support other popular 3D formats such as IGES, DXF, but it is open source, free and the simplest way to display the 3D model

Install Helix Toolkit

First you need to install the Visual Studio. You can download Visual Studio (Express or Professional version) on Microsoft website